Be Still

One

The continual buzzing of the alarm clock wakes me. I sit up in my bed, not ready to take on the day.

"Avrielle!" I hear my father yell from the main room.

"I know!" I yell back, trying to keep the sass from my tone, because I know the consequence of it.

I get ready and walk to the main room of our small, two-bedroom house. He's standing there staring at me as I make my way to the door to put my shoes on. There's always a fiery rage in his eyes that never seems to subside.

"Make sure you're here right after school, Ava. You know the consequences," has says in a stern voice like steel.

I nod tightly and exit the house, ready for the small amount of solace I get after I shut the door. I'm not talking about school, I'm talking about th journey to school. It's the one time I have for myself.

At school I get pelted with names and insults. When you go to school in ragged clothes and bruises am over your body, people talk. Some say I'm a piece of trash that needs to be taken out. Others say I was bought on the black market as a servant of some sort. I know all that isn't true, but I still don't know where I'm from.

You're probably wondering why the teachers haven't done anything. But they have, or tried to. I won't let them. It would just make him angrier. It wouldn't help anything. So I keep to myself.

My time of peace is over when I reach the steps of Piermont High School. There are students on the steps laughing and talking with friends. I've never genuinely laughed with someone before.

A group of boys spots me ascending thw steps. The usual group. I call them the barbarians. They don't look like barbarians, but they sure act like them.

"Ava, what's crackin'?" one boy asks me, Gordon Close is his name.

"Oh wait, don't answer because I know," says another boy, Gordon's second-in-command, Foster.

"What is it, Foss?" Gordon says.

"I bet it was one of her bones!" they all crack up laughing.

"Hey, that's right! She probably wouldn't give him what he wanted so he popped her in the face," says the third boy, Chris.

They are the ones that came up with the rumor that I was some sex slave from the black market. I am a descendant from my father. We have the same facial structure and the same eye color, a light green.

"You know, Gordon," I start, facing him.

He steps closer to me, trying to be menacing, "What?" The only menacing thing in my life is my father. A ten foot tall deranged dog wouldn't scare me as much as he does.

"You don't scare me. So step aside and let me go in," I say with steady voice.

Gordon doesn't scare me. He's more of a nuisance than a threat.

"Yeah? How about if I make your bruises darker?" he raised his hand between us and forms a fist.

"Doubt that could happen," I survey the black and blue dots on my arms. "You don't have a mean enough punch."

"You wanna find out?" he raises his fist.

I don't move an inch. I'm used to fists coming at me. I wait for yhe familiar sting. But it doesn't come.

"Mr. Close," a voice says that I recognize as Mrs. Carter's. "I suggest you step away from her unless you want to get suspended. Again."

Gordon makes a sound and storms off, his buddies close behind.

Mrs. Carter turns to me. "Ava, are you okay?"

"I'm fine. I was handling it!" I say, stalking off.

She is always the one to come to the so-called rescue. But she doesn't need to. I don't need a savior. I can handle hormonal high school boys. I can handle mean rich girls in the halls. I don't, and will never, need her help.

"Miss Brooks!" she calls after me, but I keep walking, throw open the doors and walk down the hall to my locker, which has been decorated with such obscenities that it's not even a locker anymore. It's more like a city wall covered in graffiti. But at least that stuff is good, this stuff is just a mess.

I grab my book for my first period and hurry down the hall to the classroom. I resume my seat in the back of the room and repeat the same routine seven more times in the day.

After school is a different story. I can either come home to a drunk and enraged father, or a sober and enraged father. Both are bad, but one is much worse.

As I step up to the door, ready to turn the knob, I hear a loud crashing noise, followed by a series of curses. My hand instinctively shrinks away from the knob. I press my ear to the door to listen, so I know what I'm up against.

"God damned tv!" he yells. "Why did I purchase such a stupid device?" Then a series of low mumbles, followed by some slurred words I can't decipher.

He's definitely drunk.

Then the door comes out from against my ear.

I look up to the furious green eyes of my father looking down at me. He grabs my arm and pulls me inside the house.

"I told you to be here after school!" he yells after flinging me into the main room.

"I am, Dad. I came straight here," I say, trying to keep calm.

"Why do you lie? I know you're lying. Look at the clock! Do you think I'm an idiot, Ava?!"

I glance at the clock on the wall behind him. It says 3:15. Fifteen minutes since school got out, which is the amount of time it takes me to get home from school.

Before I can come up with a reply, a hand flies across my face, sending me to the ground.

My vision comes back to me and I get my first good look at the room. There's glass everywhere and the television is on the floor, the screen shattered. There are broken and unbroken beer bottles strewn across the floor.

I look up at my father who has a broom in his hand. He throws is down beside me and walks away into the kitchen area.

"Get this cleaned up within an hour!" he yells.

I oblige and get up. My cheek throbbing, my head throbbing, and my vision blurring. I start sweeping mindlessly, not paying attention to whether I'm actually cleaning or not.